


Your Magnificent Silhouette

by singagainsoon



Series: "The Things That Stay" 'verse [11]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ficlet, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Newton Geiszler Recovery Arc, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Recovery, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 02:38:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15378879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singagainsoon/pseuds/singagainsoon
Summary: When Hermann at last brings Newton home, neither of them is really sure what to expect.





	Your Magnificent Silhouette

Newton is heading for the couch when Hermann stops him, hovering, in the doorway. He takes a singular step back into the bedroom.

“I thought you said you wanted to sleep,” Hermann ventures softly, pale face looking all the more worn in the dim yellow light cast from the practical lamp on the bedside table. Everything here is practical, simple and homey and taken carefully from helpful HGTV hints. Hermann is proud of his good sense. Even so, Hermann looks lost among the furniture. He is a child grown too fast, too tall and gangly and strange in his matching striped pajama set. The shirt collar is rumpled and his feet are bare and he is at once the saddest, most wonderful sight Newton ever could have hoped for. Newton takes a hesitant step back into the room, onto Hermann’s practically-new carpet. His heart skips a single, stuttering beat.

“Yeah! Yeah, I figured I'd, uh, sleep on the couch,” he mutters, ducking his head to scratch the back of his neck. The habit brings to mind the early days in the lab, the awkward dancing around each other and walking on jagged eggshells before it devolved into their daily shouting matches. Hermann’s eyebrows furrow, his dark eyes flicker from Newton’s jeans and t-shirt back to the uncertain expression on his stubble-spattered face. Are there different boundaries now, he wonders, “should not”s and “should”s that he had not considered? While there had been no shortage of long embraces and weepy kisses since they had arrived home, the sudden quiet that has fallen makes Hermann uneasy. He limps heavily without his cane, shoulders bent beneath the weight of anxious uncertainty, and drops unceremoniously to sit on the edge of the bed. Hermann feels Newton’s instinct to run to him reverberating deeply in his chest, but Newt makes no move from the spot he occupies near the door. Hermann fights to keep an even, placid expression, hopes that Newton does not feel the sting of disappointment that stabs between his lungs.

“I suppose you could, but I… ah, I've taken the liberty of laying out your pajamas.” If Newton had not been so intimately well acquainted with the intricacies of Hermann’s face, he might have missed the pink blush that springs unbidden to his cheeks. Hermann folds his hands and places then in his lap as though he is suddenly not certain what exactly to do with them. “If that was too forward-”

“No! That's- that's great, actually.” The weary, grateful smile that Newton gives him is nearly enough to make Hermann cry. He feels he has become a soft old fool all at once, crumbling easily now that Newton is in front of him again, now that a future with Newton is a rather plausible outcome for the rest of his life. Hermann knows when Newton’s eyes find the carefully folded bundle of an old band t-shirt and his favorite black sweatpants because the fragile “Oh,” that he utters breaks in the middle of the one-syllable word. Hermann watches him cross the room to the dresser where the clothes sit in a neat stack atop it, watches him unfold the shirt and examine it. The logo is so faded now that Hermann hasn't the faintest idea what it was ever supposed to be, but Newton knows. His certainty hits Hermann full in the chest, a closed fist.

“Oh,” he says again. Then, he turns to Hermann, clutching the shirt to his chest, tired eyes wide and imploring. He opens his mouth, then closes it again without having made any sound, gaping like a fish out of water. Hermann is positive that Newton wants to say _Herm, how did you get this? I thought it was lost._

“I went to your apartment to salvage some of your things, and I found a box in the very back of the closet.”

In reality, Hermann had used his PPDC credentials to lie his way into Newton's penthouse before the marshal or anyone else could come to tear the place to shreds. Alice had been gone by then, carted away by a team of PPDC-employed enforcement before the official investigators assigned to Newton's case arrived. It was lucky for them, lucky for Alice, because Hermann had gone with the intent to smash her into vile pieces. He does not say any of this.

Newton’s face drops just enough that Hermann knows he remembers exactly what had been in that box. The specialists told them that some things will take their time returning to Newton, memories buried deeper along the ten years that he had lost, but this seems to be sitting at the forefront of his splintered recollections. Or perhaps he had seen Hermann’s memories of it, passed down through their neural link. The brown cardboard had borne a Sharpie declaration of “NEWT”, stenciled in Hermann’s near-perfect penmanship, stuffed full of T-shirts, his degrees, his collection of kaiju figurines, folders of research, and- “Were they…?”

Hermann nods. “Of course they were. I have them here. I assumed you would still want them.”

“I saved every single one of 'em,” Newton murmurs as though Hermann was not already aware, pulling his shirt up over his head. Hermann relishes the sight of his tattoos, where once he had thought them the most horrid things in the world. They crease and stretch with the way Newton moves, muscle and bone wrinkling and rippling them from beneath his skin.

“As did I.”

Newton pauses mid-shirt change to inspect Hermann, to catalogue the details of his face and his mind and his heart. Something between his eyes wavers, and he drops the shirt. It pools at his feet. Hermann’s heart cracks wide open for the first time in years, and he is sure Newton hears the sound. He holds his arms out, and Newton falls into them.

“I didn't think you were gonna want me to- not after what I did at Shao, or the stuff I said, or that fucking _fight_ that we had when I left the PPDC-” Newton rambles into the skin between Hermann’s neck and his shoulder, his trembling body secure in Hermann’s arms. Hermann clutches him tightly to his chest, heart-to-beating-heart.

“Darling.”

“Herm, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean any of the stuff I said. It wasn’t me, not really-”  
  
“Hush now, my love. It’s not your fault,” he murmurs, placing a kiss on the ruffled top of Newton’s head. He still smells of hospital-issued shampoo. Newton muffles a hiccup against Hermann’s neck, and his shoulders shake. “Oh, goodness. It’s alright, _liebling_. Let it out, but- Here, now, let’s get you into bed. You’ve had quite a day, hm? There will be time enough tomorrow to talk.”  

Newton lifts his head to sniffle, to gaze wondrously at Hermann through the tears that well up and glass his eyes. Hermann cradles his face in his hands, brushes the dribbling tears with the pads of his thumbs and streaks them across Newton’s cheeks. He kisses Newton’s nose, his forehead, every inch of his beloved face with such methodical care that by the time Hermann has finished he, too, is weeping quite a bit. They peel themselves regretfully apart, and Hermann moves to turn down the covers and fluff the pillows. He entertains the notion of getting into bed and staying there for a few days, weeks, months. They will take the rest of their lives one careful step at a time, arm in arm, and they will be alright. The sentiment resonates so clearly within the both of them that neither can say whose thought it originally had been. Newton leaves his pajamas forgotten on the floor and crawls in beside Hermann’s slight form, leaving space between them. Hermann watches from the corner of his eye as Newton tucks his legs beneath the blankets, settles his head on the pillow, shifts ever-so-slightly as though he is doing his utmost not to disturb Hermann. Hermann shuts off the lamp and rolls onto his side to wrap himself around Newton, closing the distance and shutting out the nightmares that lurk just beyond the door.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @kaijubf


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